Tuesday, 17 May 2016

SusChem Stakeholder 2016: ICT and #DigitiseEU

This year’s SusChem stakeholder event takes place on 16 June in Brussels. One of the major areas for
discussion at the stakeholder event will be advances and issues in information
and communication technologies (ICT) in the process industries. Martin Winter,
Cefic Innovation Manager responsible for this SusChem priority area, outlines
some of the issues up for debate and where your input is sought.

On 10 March
SusChem organised a workshop involving around 20 ICT experts from companies and
academia to discuss ‘Digitisation’ on the European level and to build the base
for future funding calls, projects and collaborations.

SusChem, Process ICT and #DigitiseEU

From new
forms of production to innovative business models the process industry is about
to experience a revolution enabled by digital technologies. Digitisation is expected to have a high
impact on modernising Europe's production capabilities and can boost European
process industries in the race for global competitiveness and sustainability.

The European
chemical industry is a strong contributor to the roots of the European economy.
Digitisation is already present in all aspects of the sector’s activities as it
is essential from logistics, product and process design, planning, plant
operations and plant safety to marketing/sales and customer integration.

In addition,
smart materials developed by the chemical industry enable new and higher
performing ICT developments in
printable-, wearable-, nano-electronics or 3D printing techniques and also
allow more sustainable manufacture of new electronic devices avoiding material
losses and waste generation.

To remain
competitive, future factories will need well-integrated ICT systems as production
increasingly uses digital innovations such as data capture, planning and
control, modelling and simulation, cloud computing and big data analysis
enabled by high performance computers and data connections. Data analytics will allow enterprises to
convert data into knowledge, and effectively contribute to more efficient and
safer processes with less environmental impact by more efficient management of
resources, water and energy.

Focus for chemicals

With a focus
on the manufacturing environment, important categories for further development
for the chemical industry include:

Modelling,
Simulation and Forecasting: Integration of modelling of single processes
into production routes with modelling extended to all levels of automation,
including scheduling and management systems as well as on-line decision making
processes.

Real Time
Data Availability: Development of hard- and soft-sensors for continuous
processes that are reliable, fast, accurate and contact-less for use in intelligent
self-optimising measurement systems along the whole production route and fully
integrated in the plant automation environment.

Transformation
of ‘Big Data’ into Lean Information: Identifying universal solutions for
handling large amounts of data, methods to improve their reliability,
techniques to assign them to product performance and explaining their practical
meaning to all relevant applications.

Intelligent
Self-learning Systems: Building models based on data and results, which
continue to learn and broaden the scope of the models, based on closed loop
performance monitoring.

Condition
Based Advanced Maintenance: Developing tools and methods based on models,
sensors, diagnosis and data analysis to allow remote control of equipment,
prediction and prevention of failures, identification of trends and avoidance
of efficiency losses and unwanted stoppages.

Product
Quality Monitoring: Implementing integrated quality control factory-wide
systems to monitor the evolution of quality across the production route by calling
on information technology to better link process operations and plant logistics
to give production flexibility.

Resource
and Energy/ Lifecycle analysis (LCA): Enabling monitoring of environmental
targets (energy / water use, CO2-emissions etc.) in all control systems as an
additional set of constraints to optimise the overall sustainable performance.

Human-Machine
Interface: Developing intuitive and user friendly interfaces for (plant)-managers,
operators etc., information and their interpretation have to be available at
all times in all locations.

Digital potential

However,
digitisation has even greater potential to improve the European chemical
industry. By using the full potential of high speed connectivity, the internet
of things, cloud computing and cyber-physical systems in and for manufacturing,
Europe can create new high-skilled jobs, reduce its consumption of resources
and energy, increase its production capacity and continue to create the
innovative products which a changing society needs.

SusChem
inspired initiatives such as SPIRE are helping to make digitisation of European
industries a reality. Close cooperation and alignment in the definition phases
of the funding calls available under Horizon 2020 across all PPPs and all
levels of stakeholder involvement is necessary to ensure that all the needs of
the process industries are fully considered.

Stakeholder discussions

A highly interactive debate is expected at the Stakeholder event on 16 June and your questions and expectations on the outcomes for the panel debates, in particular on ICT and process issues, are welcome in advance.

You are invited to submit your questions and comments and also your expectations for outcomes as part of the registration process. You can submit your questions and comments when you register and there will also be a link for question submission sent with the registration confirmation email.

Meet the Manager – Martin Winter

Martin is a chemist
by education and received his PhD on a nanomaterial science topic in 1998 from
the Max Planck Society before leaving for postdoctoral study at the Scripps Research Institute in
the U.S. He joined Clariant in 1999 managing several innovation projects
as Research and Development group leader and focusing on innovation and growth
of new businesses. This included setting up external innovation activities
through venture capital mechanisms. In addition a marketing and sales
responsibility for one of Clariant’s start-up businesses brought him to
Asia/Japan for a two year assignment. Since June 2015 Martin has been seconded
from Clariant to Cefic in Brussels as an Innovation Manager responsible for
driving the innovation agenda for the Chemical Industry.

His main area of
responsibility is networking with the industry regarding their research and
innovation priorities and connecting them with the European Commission’s
funding instruments under Horizon 2020, for example, as the chemical sector’s
representative in the SPIRE PPP. His main focus is on ICT, chemical process
technologies and catalyst topics.

He likes to
spend his free time with his family and is also an enthusiastic skydiver.